A Place To Call Home
by Chibi Tidus
Summary: What happens when Billy loses the only thing he cares about? Rated for language and character death


A Place to Call Home  
  
Billy fell back against the wall, letting gravity take him to the ground. One arm clutched the other in pain. He tried so hard to hold back the tears from the pain.  
  
Blood seeped from the wound, going over his fingers and running down his arm, pooling in the cup his elbow made and down onto his lap. Grimacing from the pain he bit his lower lip until the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.  
  
"Billy!"  
  
Her voice cut through the pain and made him feel ashamed. He could not slow them down, and yet he was with this injury. A shadow fell over him and a few gunshots went off and the thing in front of him flew to the right.  
  
Rebecca Chambers ran down the hall and knelt by her fallen comrade. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a small green leaf. Crushing it into a powder, she said, "Now, let me see that cut."  
  
Cringing, Billy let her spread the powder over his wound. It stung like the Dickens and for a moment his vision filled with red. When it cleared, he saw something come around the corner of the hallway. Reaching for his gun that had fallen a little to his left, Rebecca made him stop with a firm, yet gentle push against the wall.  
  
"Rebecca. behind you!" Billy finally choked out.  
  
She was applying a bandage to his arm, and said, "Just one more second."  
  
"Rebecca!"  
  
Billy leaped free from her and grabbed the gun off the ground, but it was too late. The blob that was half zombie, half leech, swung at Rebecca, catching the back of her head and sending her flying to the right. It turned and made to go after her.  
  
Taking careful aim, Billy shot several bullets at the thing's legs. It barely phased it and it kept going after Rebecca, whose gun lay at Billy's feet. Rebecca was trying to crawl along the hall away from it, not having enough time to get up, her being disoriented as she was.  
  
The gun made an empty clicking noise in Billy's hands. "Shit!" he yelled and dove for Rebecca's gun. Grabbing it in one hand and steadying himself with the other, he shot at the zombie.  
  
A couple of the bullets missed, and Billy cursed himself. Rebecca had just reached the corner when the zombie lurched at her, covering her in its leech-like flesh. She screamed, reached an arm out to Billy, but he could do nothing. He was out of bullets, and she had the case of them on her side pouch.  
  
Whipping out his dagger, he let loose a primal scream and charged the zombie. It bit into Rebecca just as he got to it, slicing away at its legs, its one true weakness. Why wouldn't this bastard die?  
  
An arm materialize out of the mass and slapped him backwards. He flew and hit the wall hard. Pushing off, he landed on the mass and tried to push him arm through it to get to Rebecca. The ooze overcame his arm and solidified around it. Staring in horror, he found he was stuck as the zombie slowly began to finish its job of killing Rebecca.  
  
"No!" he shouted, and slammed the knife down as hard as he could into its head.  
  
The ooze slowly ran off Rebecca, disappearing as it did so. Billy fell to the floor. He looked over to where she lay motionless, and pulled himself along the floor towards her.  
  
"Rebecca!" he said, pulling himself into a sitting position and lifting her head up onto his lap. "Oh God. Rebecca."  
  
Her eyes were closed; she did not seem to be breathing. He frantically felt her neck and wrist for a pulse but could find none. Tears rolling down his face, he leaned his head against the wall and stared straight ahead for God knows how long.  
  
Over the course of their brief relationship, he grew to love this girl. She was younger than him by a few years, but that never seemed to matter. She was bright, capable, and so damn cute in that STARS uniform. They had been thrown together in this, and now she had ended up dead, and trying to help him, at that. He ran his hands through her hair over and over again. Her dead eyes stared straight ahead, not seeing anything anymore, and never again.  
  
He would never hear her voice, he would never again be close to her, and it was killing him. Before all this, he had been in the process of being transferred to a prison and executed for a crime he did not commit. Rebecca knew that he did not do it, and she might even be in the standing to change his fate, but still that was not likely. At the moment he did not care whether he lived or died, death seemed more and more the blessing now.  
  
Being with her made him feel alive in ways that he had not felt in years. He had lived his life before the army not knowing anything of his home, his parents. An orphan since he could remember, he never had a home. With Rebecca, he felt secure, as if maybe he had finally found a place to call home. Now. all the thoughts that have been racing through his mind since her met her would never be realized and he was doomed to knowing that he let her die.  
  
The lights overhead flickered, and he looked down the hall. There was nothing there, no zombie lurking around the corner. He could neither smell one nor hear one of those disgusting fuckers. The whole facility looked empty, deserted.  
  
Rebecca had been the only thing he had really cared about recently. He had not even cared that he was going to be executed. Thoughts mattered little to him, until he met her. When he was wither her he felt so good, so whole, and now there was nothing.  
  
He had no place to go to. He had no place to call home anymore. Hugging Rebecca's body close, he reached for his knife. 


End file.
